Abstract

The offered course is designed for PhD students, post-doctoral fellows and young researchers interested in understanding the scientific construction of the Gaia catalogue and its current and future scientific potential, in synergy with the large ground-based spectro-photometric surveys (i.e. APOGEE, GALAH,..). With ESA’s Gaia mission the framework of relativistic astrometry is required to translate photons to astrometric quantities, thus the fields of “Fundamental Astronomy” and “Fundamental Physics” are unified under the perspective of a consistent use of the theory of General Relativity. The lectures will focus on the dynamics, formation and evolution of the Milky Way, as well as on gravitational astrometry, fields of study that are already rapidly expanding after the delivery of Gaia DR2. Astrophysical topics will be addressed from both the theoretical and observational points of view in the context of current and future Gaia data releases, while some sessions will be devoted to practical exercises on the scientific topics and methodologies presented, using data from Gaia DR2. General topics include fundamental astronomy and stellar surveys, global and differential relativistic astrometry, chemo-kinematics of the Milky Way and Galactic Archeology, and Galactic dynamics. Some specific topics include, stellar streams in the halo, stellar clusters, non-equilibrium dynamics in the disk of the Milky Way, inference of physical parameters (ie. distance and velocities) and, one century after the famous experiment on the light deflection by the Sun in 1919, astrometric lensing.